Speaking in English or Arabic is a rule for students who lives in Islamic boarding school, so that all newcomers have to learn and practice those languages. There are some methods we use in studying new languages, such as memorizing and public speaking.
Firstly, memorizing new words. The students will be given some new words we often use in daily conversation in a week. In learning new vocabularies, the member of education section will shout and explain the word followed by repetition from the students. Shouting new word together makes the learners easier to remember it. Then, the students have to apply the word in a sentence. This activity is called Mufradat (Arabic), means vocabulary. In our Islamic boarding school, Mufradat is an activity in learning new words in English and Arabic. This activity is held for the first class and second class twice a day, after Subuh and Ashar.
Secondly, public speaking. In public speaking, the student will have a turn to deliver a speech in front of their friends. This activity called Muhadarah (Arabic) means meeting or lecturing. In this program, the speaker has to write an Islamic speech in Arabic or English (depends on his/her turn) and the speech will be corrected by the coach. Then, the speaker must deliver it without text. Delivering the speech, all audiences make summaries so that they will pay attention to the speaker. Besides, the coach can evaluate some aspects from this program, such as the capability and the improvement of students.
Learning by doing is really useful to habituate the student using foreign languages. Pupils not only have to memorize and deliver a speech in those foreign languages, but they also have to use them in daily conversation, 6 months after they have registered as santri/wati. The one who doesn’t speak in either Arabic or English will be punished. Therefore, we rarely heard an Indonesian conversation in this area.
p.s.: this writing based on my experience living in Islamic boarding school about ten years ago, there might be some differences nowadays and sorry for any grammatical mistakes.
